NOTE: Project N.O.M.A.D. is still in active development and should not be considered stable!

Project N.O.M.A.D.

Node for Offline Media, Archives, and Data

Knowledge That Never Goes Offline

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Project N.O.M.A.D. is a self-contained, offline-first knowledge and education server packed with critical tools, knowledge, and AI to keep you informed and empowered—anytime, anywhere.

Installation & Quickstart

Project N.O.M.A.D. can be installed on any Debian-based operating system (we recommend Ubuntu). Installation is completely terminal-based, and all tools and resources are designed to be accessed through the browser, so there's no need for a desktop environment if you'd rather setup N.O.M.A.D. as a "server" and access it through other clients.

Note: sudo/root privileges are required to run the install script

One-liner (recommended for fresh Ubuntu installs)

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y curl && curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Crosstalk-Solutions/project-nomad/refs/heads/master/install/install_nomad.sh | sudo bash

Two-step install (if you already have curl)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Crosstalk-Solutions/project-nomad/refs/heads/master/install/install_nomad.sh -o install_nomad.sh

sudo bash install_nomad.sh

Project N.O.M.A.D. is now installed on your device! Open a browser and navigate to http://localhost:8080 (or http://DEVICE_IP:8080) to start exploring!

How It Works

N.O.M.A.D. is a management UI ("Command Center") and API that orchestrates a collection of containerized tools and resources via Docker. It handles installation, configuration, and updates for everything — so you don't have to.

Built-in capabilities include:

• AI Chat with Knowledge Base — local AI chat powered by Ollama, with document upload and semantic search (RAG via Qdrant)
• Information Library — offline Wikipedia, medical references, ebooks, and more via Kiwix
• Education Platform — Khan Academy courses with progress tracking via Kolibri
• Offline Maps — downloadable regional maps via ProtoMaps
• Data Tools — encryption, encoding, and analysis via CyberChef
• Notes — local note-taking via FlatNotes
• System Benchmark — hardware scoring with a community leaderboard
• Easy Setup Wizard — guided first-time configuration with curated content collections

N.O.M.A.D. also includes built-in tools like a Wikipedia content selector, ZIM library manager, and content explorer.

What's Included

Capability	Powered By	What You Get
Information Library	Kiwix	Offline Wikipedia, medical references, survival guides, ebooks
AI Assistant	Ollama + Qdrant	Built-in chat with document upload and semantic search
Education Platform	Kolibri	Khan Academy courses, progress tracking, multi-user support
Offline Maps	ProtoMaps	Downloadable regional maps with search and navigation
Data Tools	CyberChef	Encryption, encoding, hashing, and data analysis
Notes	FlatNotes	Local note-taking with markdown support
System Benchmark	Built-in	Hardware scoring, Builder Tags, and community leaderboard

Device Requirements

While many similar offline survival computers are designed to be run on bare-minimum, lightweight hardware, Project N.O.M.A.D. is quite the opposite. To install and run the available AI tools, we highly encourage the use of a beefy, GPU-backed device to make the most of your install.

At it's core, however, N.O.M.A.D. is still very lightweight. For a barebones installation of the management application itself, the following minimal specs are required:

Note: Project N.O.M.A.D. is not sponsored by any hardware manufacturer and is designed to be as hardware-agnostic as possible. The harware listed below is for example/comparison use only

Minimum Specs

• Processor: 2 GHz dual-core processor or better
• RAM: 4GB system memory
• Storage: At least 5 GB free disk space
• OS: Debian-based (Ubuntu recommended)
• Stable internet connection (required during install only)

To run LLM's and other included AI tools:

Optimal Specs

• Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 or Intel Core i7 or better
• RAM: 32 GB system memory
• Graphics: NVIDIA RTX 3060 or AMD equivalent or better (more VRAM = run larger models)
• Storage: At least 250 GB free disk space (preferably on SSD)
• OS: Debian-based (Ubuntu recommended)
• Stable internet connection (required during install only)

Again, Project N.O.M.A.D. itself is quite lightweight - it's the tools and resources you choose to install with N.O.M.A.D. that will determine the specs required for your unique deployment

About Internet Usage & Privacy

Project N.O.M.A.D. is designed for offline usage. An internet connection is only required during the initial installation (to download dependencies) and if you (the user) decide to download additional tools and resources at a later time. Otherwise, N.O.M.A.D. does not require an internet connection and has ZERO built-in telemetry.

To test internet connectivity, N.O.M.A.D. attempts to make a request to Cloudflare's utility endpoint, https://1.1.1.1/cdn-cgi/trace and checks for a successful response.

About Security

By design, Project N.O.M.A.D. is intended to be open and available without hurdles - it includes no authentication. If you decide to connect your device to a local network after install (e.g. for allowing other devices to access it's resources), you can block/open ports to control which services are exposed.

Versioning

This project uses semantic versioning. The version is managed in the root package.json and automatically updated by semantic-release. For simplicity's sake, the "project-nomad" container uses the same version defined there instead of the version in admin/package.json (stays at 0.0.0), as it's the only container derived from the code.

Community & Resources

• Website: www.projectnomad.us - Learn more about the project
• Discord: Join the Community - Get help, share your builds, and connect with other NOMAD users
• Benchmark Leaderboard: benchmark.projectnomad.us - See how your hardware stacks up against other NOMAD builds

Helper Scripts

Once installed, Project N.O.M.A.D. has a few helper scripts should you ever need to troubleshoot issues or perform maintenance that can't be done through the Command Center. All of these scripts are found in Project N.O.M.A.D.'s install directory, /opt/project-nomad

Start Script - Starts all installed project containers

sudo bash /opt/project-nomad/start_nomad.sh

Stop Script - Stops all installed project containers

sudo bash /opt/project-nomad/stop_nomad.sh

Update Script - Attempts to pull the latest images for the Command Center and its dependencies (i.e. mysql) and recreate the containers. Note: this only updates the Command Center containers. It does not update the installable application containers - that should be done through the Command Center UI

sudo bash /opt/project-nomad/update_nomad.sh

Uninstall Script - Need to start fresh? Use the uninstall script to make your life easy. Note: this cannot be undone!

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Crosstalk-Solutions/project-nomad/refs/heads/master/install/uninstall_nomad.sh -o uninstall_nomad.sh

sudo bash uninstall_nomad.sh